lynxis published the first lubuntu
test iso
based on the seeds by David Sugar and additional patches. The first release was
381 MB and a second one only 292 MB. Following test images are also
around this size. After crashing the c-base server several times with the lubuntu images, the LXDE team kindly offers the download from its website: download.lxde.org/lubuntu-9.10

lubuntu logo suggestion by gusion

The lubuntu project was started in February after I met with Mark Shuttleworth in Berlin. We talked about how to cooperate between LXDE and Ubuntu. Mark agreed that a light Ubuntu distro would definitely be worthwile to proceed. I started the lubuntu project with the goal to create an Ubuntu derivative that is fast and lightweight just as the goals of the LXDE project.

LXDE, "Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment", is an extremely fast, performing
and energy saving desktop environment. It is maintained by an
international community of developers and comes with a beautiful
interface, multi-language support, standard keyboard short cuts and
additional features like tabbed file browsing. LXDE uses less CPU and
less RAM. It is especially designed for cloud computers with low
hardware specifications like netbooks, mobile devices (e.g. MIDs) or
older computers. LXDE can be installed with distributions like Ubuntu
or Debian. It provides a fast desktop experience connecting easily with
applications in the cloud. LXDE supports a wealth of programs, that can
be installed with Linux systems locally. The source code of LXDE is
licensed partly under the terms of the General Public License and partly under the LGPL.

The lubuntu team already had IRC meetings, face to face gatherings in Singapore, Berlin and other cities. And, I am excited to see the team getting together and releasing first results now. lynxis who is most of the time in the c-base just over the street from my appartment joined the team a few months ago. I am looking forward to more people joining up with us.

There are many ways you can support the project. Firstly download and test the current test releases. If you are a developer you can submit patches. If you are a tester, please leave info about bugs in the bug tracker. Secondly you can join us and create desktop backgrounds and logos for lubuntu. We have not decided yet, what the final logo will look like.Check out the lubuntu Artwork Forum and leave your ideas there. You can also help with translations, if you speak another language and translate the desktop of LXDE. Or you can help to improve or write Wikipedia articles about lubuntu and LXDE.

On Tuesday, June 2 2009 sixteen members of the local Debian and FOSS
community met in Berlin to discuss a possible bid from Germany for the
Debconf11. We had some discussions at DebConf8
already and also our DPL promoted the idea. There is a strong desire in
the local community to get the Debconf to Germany for the first time.
The participation at the informally organized Berlin meeting was
already overwhelming. There is a big and active group of very welcoming
and friendly local supporters and there is an excellent and cost
effective infrastructure available to host the event and contributors
from all over the world. We had a follow up about a Berlin bid during the Linuxtag on June 26, 2009, where bidders from Rhein/Rhur and Munich also presented their ideas for bids. We decided to submit only one bid for Debconf11 from Germany and will have an internal German process to decide which bid will work out best. During the Debconf9 there was a presentation of the bids from Germany.

A good friend of mine, Chris Wickert, is running for the Fedora Engeneering Steering Committee.
Chris is a big contributor and supporter of LXDE and I value
Christoph's contributions to the free software community a lot and
especially his commitment to make computer systems more accessible to
people who do not own high end computers, be it here in Europe or
anywhere else in the world:

Christoph is the maintainer of Xfce and LXDE in Fedora, the lightweight desktops in Fedora.

His goals are to make Fedora more lightweight and less ressource hungry as well as keeping depencies low.

To be able to vote for Chris you need to have a (1) Fedora Account and (2) be accepted in a group, for example as a Fedora Ambassador. Voting is possible until June 22, 2009. Chris is the most active distro package maintainer of LXDE in
Fedora. His engagements is a great success for both Fedora and LXDE as
the large interest at Chemnitzer Linuxtage and other events have shown
recently.

A quote from Chris Wickert:
(I want to) … improve packaging quality and enforce higher standards
for better cross desktop interoperability. Try to reduce the dependency
bloat to make sure Fedora does not become too fat, so it still can be
used on older or smaller hardware like netbooks or the OLPC without too
much pain.

Jim: The Linux Foundation ... it is made of all of the largest backers of Linux in the world. Many thousands of individuals in the world as well. Some of our prominent members include NEC, IBM, Hitachi, Hewlett Packard, Oracle, AMD, Intell, Novell, redhat. It is kind of everybody than Microsoft... And what we do is we provide services to help grow the Linux platform. Some of which include employing and paying people like Linus Torvalds to work on the Linux kernel. We provide a program to standardize the Linux operating system... We promote advance that help the community collaborate on Linux, such as Kernel Summit, a collaboration summit. And we work on all kinds of different collaborative development projects to enhance the Linux platform.

Mario: How big is the involvement in Europe?

Jim: It started in the US and we got a limited participation in Europe, which is ironic considering Linux really was born in Europe, but we are a young organization and we wanna extend over here.

Mario: How do you see the future of Linux?

Jim: ... I think what we are seeing is Linux is growing in three different categories. One in embedded and mobile, you are seeing Motorola ships their cell phones based on Linux platform. Google announced two months ago a reference platform for mobile devices based on Linux, Android. ... And you are seeing ... companies like Samsung, Lenovo and others with interesting new mobile devices. So there is tremendous amount of growth there. We are also seeing growth in the desktop world, not only we are seeing Linux being used in large corporations, in fact Peugeot in Europe uses Linux on their desktops and saves quite a bit of money in doing so, more importantly we are seeing pc manufacturers for the first time ship their computers to the market with Linux preinstalled. ... This is a break through. ... And finally we are seeing a ton of growth in the server side of the market. Linux has a about 35 percent market share now and that is growing, and we have trends like virtualization, where Linux is strong. ... in high performance computing, in super computing...

Jim Zemlin, formerly executive director of the Free Standards Group, is the executive director of the Linux Foundation. Zemlin previously served as vice president of marketing for Covalent Technologies, the leader in products and services for the Apache web server. Prior to that, he was a member of the founding management team of Corio, a leading enterprise application service provider that had a successful initial public offering in July 2000. Widely quoted in the press on open source and commercial software trends, Zemlin has also been a keynote speaker at industry and financial conferences including Gartner's Open Source Conference, Linux World and OSCON. Zemlin is an adviser on open source strategy to various companies and governmental groups including Hyperic, Zmanda and the Chinese Open Source Promotion Union. (May 26, 2008, http://www.linux-foundation.org/en/Staff)